WA Senator warns: ABC facing privatisation by stealth

The independent production capacity of the ABC is being systematically and deliberately gutted, the Australian Greens warned today.

The Greens communications spokesperson, Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam, said the latest round of program cancellations and redundancies announced this week are unnecessary and self-defeating.

“Unlike SBS and community television, the ABC received a substantial funding boost in the last triennial funding round,” he said. “The Australian public have the right to know why ABC management has since pursued a strategy of hollowing out and eliminating its own independent production capacities. More to the point, how ABC’s management can justify a budget of around a billion dollars a year if much of the production work is siphoned off to the private sector.”

“Our national broadcaster needs to be able to produce enough of its own programs to maintain its independence, standards and integrity.

“This trend of shutting down production units and obsession with outsourcing has gone too far – it is time to reverse the tide.”